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The conversion of rangelands to other land uses generates many negative environmental side effects and increases the vulnerability of pastoralists’ livelihoods. In this regard, it would be important to predict the future land use changes and to understand the pastoralists’ knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward the rangelands’ conservation and sustainable management. In this study, the land use changes of Iran Kishlak pastoralist settlements were initially predicted using the Markov chain model and the vulnerability of the study area was determined using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process in terms of environmental stresses during various years. Also, to explore the rangeland conservation behaviors of pastoralists, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was employed. The results indicated that continuation of the current trend of land use change would lead to the intensification of environmental vulnerability, as well as further reduction of rangeland, forest, and water body area. The results of estimating the TPB model revealed that the attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control could account for 75% of the variance changes in the pastoralists’ intention toward rangeland conservation. Compared with the perceived behavioral control, the intention toward rangeland conservation had a stronger effect on rangeland conservation behavior. On the basis of the findings of this study, we concluded that to analyze the pastoralists’ rangelands conservation behaviors, the use of TBP can be the first step toward preventing the degradation of vegetation and sustainable management rangelands. Accordingly, it is recommended that pastoralists be provided with technical and economic assistance in the field of rangeland conservation strategies. This can improve their attitude and beliefs and consequently rangeland conservation behavior.

Water resources are under increasing pressure from population growth, socio-economic development, and climate change. The main user of freshwater is the agriculture sector, accounting for 70–80% of global water use. Consequently, increasing water productivity and reducing water use in this sector are vital for alleviating water scarcity. It has been alleged that domestic or international trade of water-consumed products from wet-provinces or countries to arid and semi-arid provinces or countries is one possible path to mitigate water shortage. In this regard, virtual water flows and their determinants in Iran are investigated in this paper. This study examines the main determinants of bilateral virtual water flows associated with international trade in agricultural goods among Iran and other countries using a gravity model of trade. The impacts of climate change and socio-economic change scenarios on the virtual water trade are simulated. The result of the gravity model indicated that bilateral virtual water trade flows are influenced by the classical determinants and all the mass-related variables (gross domestic product and population) are significant with expected signs. Finally, the result obtained from the simulation of climate and socio-economic change scenarios showed that under the pessimistic scenario of climate change and population growth rate of 0.98 and 0.44%, VW trade between Iran and other countries would increase by 41 and 66% in the periods of 2016–2045 and 2070–2099, respectively. As a consequence, identifying the appropriate countries for business interactions and adopting effective trade policies are very important and need attention soon. HIGHLIGHTS Bilateral virtual water trade flows are influenced by the classical determinants and all the mass-related variables (gross domestic product and population).; The size of the future virtual water flows was predicted under the climate and population change scenarios.; The average annual temperature and the population of Iran, as the determinants of virtual water flows, have a positive and significant effect on the net virtual water flows.

Following a particular attention given to environmental issues over the last few decades, establishing proper developmental policies to increase electricity production from renewable energy (RE) has not only been an important issue but also a challenge for many countries. Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Policy is one of the tools that is being used to facilitate the development of RE. This research evaluated the economic, welfare and environmental impact of this policy on Iran's economy. Therefore, after developing an Economic-Energy-Environmental (E3) type of Hybrid General Equilibrium model, the effect of FIT policy was examined under different scenarios in order to find an optimal condition in which 10% of electrical energy could be produced from renewable resources. The comparison between the results showed that the application of subsidies to RE and the way the government finances these subsidies can affect the results of FIT policy. Meanwhile, regardless of the role considered for the impact of environmental factors, our policies under the scenario of technology neutral is the most efficient, as it has less impact on the decline of GDP of different sectors and also has less financial cost for government.